Cite as: 564 U. S. ____ (2011) 1 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

MANUEL VALLE v. FLORIDA 

ON APPLICATION FOR STAY AND PETITION FOR WRIT OF 

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF FLORIDA 

No. 11–6029. (11A229) (Decided September 28, 2011)
 

The application for stay of execution of sentence of death 

presented to JUSTICE THOMAS and by him referred to the 

Court is denied. The motion of Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales, et al. for leave to file a brief 

as amicus curiae is granted. The petition for a writ of 

certiorari is denied. 

JUSTICE BREYER, dissenting from denial of stay. 

The State of Florida seeks to execute Manuel Valle for a 

crime for which he was initially sentenced to death more 

than 33 years ago. Valle asks us to consider whether that 

execution following decades of incarceration on death row 

violates the Constitution’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 8. I would consider the claim. See Lackey v. Texas, 514 U. S. 1045 (1995) 

(Stevens, J., respecting denial of certiorari); Knight v. 

Florida, 528 U. S. 990, 993 (1989) (BREYER, J., dissenting 

from denial of certiorari). 

I have little doubt about the cruelty of so long a period of 

incarceration under sentence of death. In Lackey and in 

Knight Justice Stevens and I referred to the legal sources, 

in addition to studies of attempted suicides, that buttress

the commonsense conclusion that 33 years in prison under 

threat of execution is cruel. See In re Medley, 134 U. S. 

160, 172 (1890) (describing as “horrible” the “feelings” that 

accompany uncertainty about whether, or when, the execution will take place); Solesbee v. Balkcom, 339 U. S. 9, 

14 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) (“In the history of 

murder, the onset of insanity while awaiting execution of a 
 

 

2 VALLE v. FLORIDA 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

death sentence is not a rare phenomenon”); Strafer, Volunteering for Execution, 74 J. Crim. L. & C. 860, 872, 

n. 44 (1983) (a study of Florida inmates showed that 35% 

of those confined on death row attempted suicide; 42% 

seriously considered suicide); id., at 869–871, (“Recent

studies and law suits document both the barbaric conditions pervading death rows and the debilitating and lifenegating effects of these conditions”).

So long a confinement followed by execution would also 

seem unusual. The average period of time that an individual sentenced to death spends on death row is almost

15 years. Thirty three years is more than twice as long. 

And, such delays are uncommon. See Dept. of Justice,

Bureau of Justice Statistics, T. Snell, Statiscal Tables, 

Capital Punishment, 2009, p. 19 (Dec. 2010) (Table 18) 

(approximately 113 prisoners have been under a sentence

of death for more than 29 years out of 3,173 death row 

prisoners in total; 33 of those 113 are in Florida). Cf. 

Knight, 528 U. S., at 993–994 (BREYER, J., dissenting from

denial of certiorari) (noting that 24 prisoners had been on

death row for more than 20 years). See also id., at 995 (“A

growing number of courts outside the United States— 

courts that accept or assume the lawfulness of the death 

penalty— have held that lengthy delay in administering a 

lawful death penalty renders the ultimate execution inhuman, degrading, or unusually cruel”). 

The commonly accepted justifications for the death

penalty are close to nonexistent in a case such as this one.

It is difficult to imagine how an execution following so long

a period of incarceration could add significantly to that

punishment’s deterrent value. It seems yet more unlikely

that the execution, coming after what is close to a lifetime 

of imprisonment, matters in respect to incapacitation. 

Thus, I would focus upon the “moral sensibility” of a community that finds in the death sentence an appropriate 

public reaction to a terrible crime. See Spaziano v. Flori-
Cite as: 564 U. S. ____ (2011) 3 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

da, 468 U. S. 447, 481 (1984) (Stevens, J., concurring in

part and dissenting in part). And, I would ask how often 

that community’s sense of retribution would forcefully 

insist upon a death that comes only several decades after 

the crime was committed. 

It might be argued that Valle, not the State, is responsible for the long delay. But Valle replies that more than

two decades of delay reflect the State’s failure to provide 

the kind of trial and penalty procedures that the law 

requires. Regardless, one cannot realistically expect a

defendant condemned to death to refrain from fighting for 

his life by seeking to use whatever procedures the law 

allows. 

It might also be argued that it is not so much the State

as it is the numerous procedures that the law demands

that produce decades of delay. But this kind of an argument does not automatically justify execution in this case. 

Rather, the argument may point instead to a more basic 

difficulty, namely the difficulty of reconciling the imposition of the death penalty as currently administered with

procedures necessary to assure that the wrong person is 

not executed. 

Because this case may well raise these questions and

because I believe the Court should consider them, I vote to 

grant the application for stay.